The Mask of Sanity
Hervey M. Cleckley - 1941
Cleckley, first published in 1941, describing Cleckley's clinical interviews with patients in a locked institution. The text is considered to be a seminal work and the most influential clinical description of psychopathy in the twentieth century. The basic elements of psychopathy outlined by Cleckley are still relevant today. The title refers to the normal "mask" that conceals the mental disorder of the psychopathic person in Cleckley's conceptualization.
Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self
Daphne Simeon - 2006
These are quotes from actual people, experiencing something they don't understand. What they are saying is being heard by friends, families, and physicians today more than ever before. They do not simply suffer from anxiety, or depression, and they are not schizophrenic. They have found themselves trapped in a very real and singular disorder, yet few even know its name. Their enigmatic state of mind has been studied for more than 100 years, but only recently has it become clear how prevalent and how distinctive it really is. The condition is called Depersonalization Disorder, and Feeling Unreal is the first book to reveal what it's all about.This important volume explores not only Depersonalization, but the philosophical and literary implications of selflessness as well, while providing the latest research, possible treatments, and ways to live and thrive when life seems unreal. For those who still believe that such experiences are merely part of something else, that depersonalization is just a symptom and not a disorder in its own right, Feeling Unreal presents compelling evidence to the contrary. This book provides long-awaited answers for people suffering from Depersonalization Disorder and their loved ones, for mental health professionals, and for all students of the condition, while serving as a wake up call to the medical community at large.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton - 1621
Lewellyn Powys called it "the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing," while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton's spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today's readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.
Wall and Piece
Banksy - 2005
Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.
Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl - 1974
Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometime unconscious human desire for inspiration or revelation, and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.
Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière
Georges Didi-Huberman - 1982
Focusing on the immense photographic output of the Salpetriere hospital, the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women, Didi-Huberman shows the crucial role played by photography in the invention of the category of hysteria. Under the direction of the medical teacher and clinician Jean-Martin Charcot, the inmates of Salpetriere identified as hysterics were methodically photographed, providing skeptical colleagues with visual proof of hysteria's specific form. These images, many of which appear in this book, provided the materials for the multivolume album Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere.As Didi-Huberman shows, these photographs were far from simply objective documentation. The subjects were required to portray their hysterical type--they performed their own hysteria. Bribed by the special status they enjoyed in the purgatory of experimentation and threatened with transfer back to the inferno of the incurables, the women patiently posed for the photographs and submitted to presentations of hysterical attacks before the crowds that gathered for Charcot's Tuesday Lectures.Charcot did not stop at voyeuristic observation. Through techniques such as hypnosis, electroshock therapy, and genital manipulation, he instigated the hysterical symptoms in his patients, eventually giving rise to hatred and resistance on their part. Didi-Huberman follows this path from complicity to antipathy in one of Charcot's favorite cases, that of Augustine, whose image crops up again and again in the Iconographie. Augustine's virtuosic performance of hysteria ultimately became one of self-sacrifice, seen in pictures of ecstasy, crucifixion, and silent cries.
The Art Book
Phaidon Press - 1997
Each artist is represented by a full-page colour plate of a definitive work, accompanied by explanatory and illuminating information on the image and its creator. Glossaries of artistic movements and technical terms are included, making this a valuable work of reference as well as a feast for the eyes. By breaking with traditional classifications, The Art Book presents a fresh and original approach to art: an unparalleled visual sourcebook and a celebration of our rich and multi-faceted culture.
Down Below
Leonora Carrington - 1945
Fiction. Translated from the French by Victor Llona. DOWN BELOW is an account of Leonora Carrington's travels to Spain after having been declared "incurably insane." Carrington wrote and painted as a defender of the Surrealist movement into the twentieth century. DOWN BELOW was first published in 1944. This recent publication includes new collages by Debra Taub.
Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence
Aaron T. Beck - 1999
Aaron T. Beck has always been at the forefront of cognitive therapy research, his approach being the most rapidly growing psychotherapy today. Now, in his most important work to date, the Father of Cognitive Therapy presents a revolutionary look at destructive behavior--from domestic abuse to genocide to war--and provides a solid framework for remedying these crucial problems. In this book, Dr. Beckillustrates the specific psychological aberrations underlying anger, interpersonal hostility, ethnic conflict, genocide, and war;clarifies why perpetrators of evil deeds are motivated by a belief that they are doing good;explains how the offenders are locked into distorted belief systems that control their behavior and shows how the same distortions in thinking occur in a rampaging mob as in an enraged spouse;provides a blueprint for correcting warped thinking and belief systems and, consequently, undercutting various forms of hostility; anddiscusses how the individual and society as a whole might use the tools of psychotherapy to block the psychological pathways to war, genocide, rape, and murder.
Fire in the Brain: Clinical Tales of Hallucination
Ronald K. Siegel - 1992
Siegel has carved out a special niche in this area, having devoted his research, teaching and clinical and forensic career as a neuropsychiatrist to studying the phenomenon and trying to fathom the relationship of it to what is happening in the brain. No passive observer, he is himself an experienced ``psychonaut.'' Siegel presents 17 case studies, grouped under the headings of ``visionary drugs,'' ``dreams,'' ``imaginary companions,'' and ``life-threatening danger.''
History of Beauty
Umberto Eco - 2004
What is beauty? Umberto Eco, among Italy’s finest and most important contemporary thinkers, explores the nature, the meaning, and the very history of the idea of beauty in Western culture. The profound and subtle text is lavishly illustrated with abundant examples of sublime painting and sculpture and lengthy quotations from writers and philosophers. This is the first paperback edition of History of Beauty, making this intellectual and philosophical journey with one of the world’s most acclaimed thinkers available in a more compact and affordable format.From the Trade Paperback edition
Art as Experience
John Dewey - 1934
Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.
The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race
Daniel Z. Lieberman - 2018
In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it’s why we gamble and squander. From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something—anything—that’s new. From this understanding—the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it—we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion – and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others. In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and why the brains of liberals and conservatives really are different.
On Death and Dying
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - 1969
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this remarkable book, Dr. Kübler-Ross first explored the now-famous five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Through sample interviews and conversations, she gives the reader a better understanding of how imminent death affects the patient, the professionals who serve that patient, and the patient's family, bringing hope to all who are involved.
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
Stephen Grosz - 2012
These beautifully rendered tales illuminate the fundamental pathways of life from birth to death.A woman finds herself daydreaming as she returns home from a business trip; a young man loses his wallet. We learn, too, from more extreme examples: the patient who points an unloaded gun at a police officer, the compulsive liar who convinces his wife he's dying of cancer. The stories invite compassionate understanding, suggesting answers to the questions that compel and disturb us most about love and loss, parents and children, work and change. The resulting journey will spark new ideas about who we are and why we do what we do.